Fertile Duties

Throughout history, the female identity has been curated into narrow archetypes: the nurturer, the aesthetic object, the silent laborer.  We are tasked with the quiet endurance of community-building and the cyclical, visceral reality of menstruation, a bloodletting we are expected to mask.

In my first exploration of slip-casting, I chose to materialize this hidden cycle.  These cast droplets, finished in deep crimson and shrouded in brown-toned wax, mimic the oxidizing reality of menstrual blood.  Suspended from a rigid metal frame by beaded wires, the work juxtaposes the decorative adornment of feminine dress with the weight of biological expectation.  Fertile Duties utilizes the silhouette of a hoop skirt as a skeletal cage, symbolizing the entrapment of women within the endless cycles of duty dictated by a patriarchal structure.